Yesterday a 19-year-old serviceman of the Armenian armed forces was killed by the enemy’s fire in one of the military units in the southeastern direction of the Defense Army.

Yesterday Aliyev met with the Turkish minister of defense Nurettin Canikli who announced: “Liberation of Karabakh forming part of Azerbaijan is very important, and these territories will sooner or later be liberated from Armenian occupation.”

“The wish of the Azerbaijani people is an order for Turkey,” the Turkish minister said. Turkey and Aliyev held several joint exercises, and the minister had arrived for the closing of the exercise.

Recently Azerbaijan has found itself in an unfavorable international situation and is shaken by scandals. Yesterday the resolution on sanctions on Azerbaijan was included in the U.S. Congress agenda. A similar resolution has been initiated in the PACE.

The world press has published scandalous revelations headlined “Azerbaijani laundromat” involving money laundering and bribery of European officials. At the same time, Israel and Czech are investigating the issue of sale of ammunition to Azerbaijan.

Here is a situation when it is a problem to utter anything more or less in Azerbaijan’s favor because they may immediately be suspected of a corruption deal with Azerbaijan. This is true for politicians, media and experts. Besides, the sale of weapons to Azerbaijan becomes problematic.

These developments have cornered Azerbaijan, and it is not accidental that Aliyev’s only argument at the UN GA was blackmail and threats to start a war.

At the same time, Russia and Turkey may lend a hand to Azerbaijan, especially that the situation of these two countries does not differ much from Azerbaijan. In particular, this is about Turkey which gets extra problems after the Kurdish referendum when the centennial status quo may be questioned.

A three-party alliance is possible because Turkey and Azerbaijan are the “result” of the status quo that occurred with Russia’s help and effort. Is there a possibility that Azerbaijan will use force in this situation, which experts are not hiding? As an argument, they note that after meeting Nalbandyan in New York the co-chairs’ statement did not mention the Vienna agenda. Has Vienna left the agenda, are the United States and France keeping away from the peace process while Russia has gained the “monopoly of settlement”?

Putin visited Ankara to discuss regional issues with Erdogan. The visit was interpreted in the context of the abovementioned circumstances, considering the centennial developments, and the April war.

In this situation, a lot depends on Russia’s behavior which currently has an advantage in its relations with Turkey and Azerbaijan and does not need to make concessions over solution of problems, namely with regard to the Armenian interests.

Here, of course, Armenia may and should “help” Russia, and all the preconditions are in place, including the developments around Azerbaijan that may serve as a serious basis of arguments for Armenia. Besides, the Western partners provide sufficient tools to Armenia for sovereign decisions.

What was this shot at the border? Was it a threat to start military actions? Was it despair? In fact, a decision on a war may indeed be a means of resolving the problem with international recognition of Artsakh. Azerbaijan understands this very well, and Russia understands that this is going to be the establishment of the centennial status quo.

At least the Armenian forces have recently held a drill demonstrating their modern weapons, and the Armenian military announced about deepening and enlarging the “security area” if new military actions start.